Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao’s words cast all the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and demon emperors into a daze. What did ‘make them as weak as us’ mean?

“Developing the technology of a certain field until it is better than the Imperium of True Human Beings’ is, of course, the most correct methodology, but the question is that we don’t know the potential and the speed of development of the Imperium of True Human Beings,” Li Yao explained. “While we are developing, the Imperium is also developing. Why are we so sure that we can surpass the Imperium in a certain aspect?

“Even if we indeed surpass the Imperium in a certain field, the Imperium is definitely still much more advanced than us in countless more fields. It is an undeniable fact. Otherwise, the Imperium will have developed for nothing in the past thousand years, won’t it?

“All in all, to surpass the Imperium in every field requires tremendous investment. It is extremely difficult and not very hopeful. Even if we do surpass the Imperium in the end, it still might not be the decisive factor in the war!

“But this is what I think. We don’t know how strong the Imperium is, but we know exactly what we are able to do and what we are not. If we can figure out an approach to limit the expedition army of the Imperium’s war ability to our level, we will be able to crush the intruder with our advantage in experience and number, won’t we?”

All the participants of the meeting nodded before shaking their heads with obvious disapproval.

It was definitely a correct statement, but correctness did not make it useful. The critical question was ‘how’!

“Generally speaking,” Li Yao continued, “the advantages of the Imperium can be concluded to two aspects. Firstly, the number of the experts is larger, and their level is higher, perhaps with a few Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators. Secondly, the magical equipment of the Imperium is more advanced, and their methods to utilize spiritual energy are unbelievable!

“The two advantages are based on the same factor, which is spiritual energy!

“The top experts must inhale and exhale spiritual energy as vast as an ocean to maintain their peak state and blow out destructive force. The magnificent magical equipment can only be driven by astronomical crystals. A cook cannot make food without ingredients. The universe is ruled by the law of conservation of energy. ‘Perpetual motion machines’ do not exist. Do you agree, everybody?

“Then, what if there isn’t spiritual energy?

“What if we can create a temporary space around the expedition army of the Imperium where there is absolutely no spiritual energy?”

Everybody was stunned by what Li Yao said!

Many Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and demon emperors looked at each other in bewilderment. They understood every word that Li Yao had said, but they failed to comprehend the sentence when the words were connected into a sentence.

Since they were born, they had been living in a universe filled with spiritual energy. Some places had denser spiritual energy, and some places had less.

Even the demon emperors who mainly trained their bodies had to inhale and exhale natural spiritual energy during their training, except that their consumption on spiritual energy was relatively less.

Asking them to imagine a world without spiritual energy was like asking a fish in the deep sea to imagine a world without water. They felt that the world was falling apart around them!

“In a world with absolutely no spiritual energy, the advantages in technologies and experts that the expedition army of the Imperium have will be suppressed to the minimum!” Li Yao declared resolutely. “In the world of ‘absolute vacuum’, the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators and Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivators of the Imperium will not be able to absorb spiritual energy from the outside world. They can only count on their own stock or be refilled by the crystals in their Cosmos Rings.

“It’s true that such high-level Cultivators boast an extremely broad brain and abdomen, which can store immense spiritual energy. But at the same time, their consumption rate is hundreds of times higher than the low-level Cultivators! How much spiritual energy will be consumed when they launch a strike that can blow up a starship? At least one tenth of their stock, I believe. And another one tenth of the stock will be drained after they resist a barrage of the starships on our side! If they calculate the trajectories of the cannonballs hundreds of times per second with the best of their computational ability, how much spiritual energy will they consume?

“Enormous as the stock of their spiritual energy may be, how long can it last?

“Of course, their Cosmos Rings can store a large number of crystals. But swallowing crystals and transforming them into spiritual energy takes time, too. It’s like the delicious food that an ordinary person takes, which will take a few hours to be digested, absorbed, and transformed into energy. It cannot be turned into physical strength the moment it is eaten!

“If the ordinary person does strenuous exercises, chances are that they will even have indigestion!

“In my personal experience, it takes of more than half a day to absorb an ultra-level marrow crystal the size of a finger without any distractions. As incredible as the Cultivators of the Imperium might be, it is impossible for them to digest the spiritual energy in a marrow crystal after only several minutes, right?

“Let’s say that their absorption efficiency is twice as good as mine, and it takes three hours for them to digest a marrow crystal. In a simmering battlefield, how will the Cultivators of the Imperium be given three hours to digest the marrow crystals? They will have been blown into smithereens in the bombardment!

“Same goes for the magical equipment. A lot of magical equipment has to echo with the natural spiritual energy nearby in order to achieve the best effect. The natural spiritual energy is like lubricant that keeps the steadiness of different units of the magical equipment!

“In an absolute vacuum that is devoid of spiritual energy, the more advanced a piece of magical equipment is, the less likely it can be activated to the maximum. Also, after functioning once or twice, it will certainly be overly drained, if not wasted!

“With the experts and the magical equipment both restrained, the expedition army of the Imperium will not be able to perform their brilliant methods at all, however marvelous the methods are. They will be sharks stranded on the beach and can only be butchered by us!”

Then, Li Yao halted for a moment intentionally so that the unprecedented silence in the hall could sink deeper.

Professor Mo Xuan was quite a close friend of him. After hearing such an… unbelievable plan, he simply rose up and asked without caring about the rules, “Li Yao, the absolute vacuum devoid of spiritual energy that you mentioned… is it technologically realizable?”

“Of course it is. Also, technologically speaking, it is definitely the easiest of all the plans proposed so far!” Li Yao smiled confidently. “If we get to the bottom of it, as long as the spiritual energy in a certain area is instantly vaporized, and the spiritual energy in the nearby is stopped from filling in the vacancy, we will achieve our purpose!

“It is not easy to collect the spiritual energy in an area, but isn’t it more than simple to consume all the spiritual energy? Many crystal bombs of the present day are based on the mechanism that the explosive force of the crystals will damage the stability of the floating spiritual energy in the air, thereby accomplishing a large-scale explosion!

“There’s also the famous method of thunder prevention. By triggering and detonating the spiritual energy of the thunder class in the clouds, all the fierce spiritual energy will be unleashed very quickly. For a long time that follows, there will be no thunder in the clouds again because the spiritual energy has been drained!

“They are all very mature technologies and magical equipment. Nothing too complicated. What I am trying to do is merely to expand such crystal bombs… by hundreds of times or thousands of times!

“This is exactly the ‘black hole bomb’ that I’ve designed. Once projected and detonated, they will instantly swallow all the spiritual energy in a certain area like a real black hole. Then, after the transformation of rune arrays, the spiritual energy absorbed will turn into high-interference waves that will form a certain ‘membrane’ out of the area, preventing the spiritual energy of the outside world from flowing in!

“Devouring the spiritual energy, interfering with the waves, and blocking with the membrane. With the three approaches, even if we cannot create an absolute vacuum that is completely devoid of spiritual energy, we will at least be able to suppress the spiritual energy in the area to the minimum and trap the expedition army of the Imperium in an empty swamp!

“This is like taking away the firewood under the cooking pot. We will be limiting the greatest advantages of the Imperium fundamentally!”

The humming sounds in the hall was louder and louder. Professor Mo Xuan pondered for a moment but still asked, “Li Yao, have you considered such a problem? Even if your ‘black hole bomb’ is successfully invented, and you can create ‘absolute vacuums’ that are temporarily devoid of spiritual energy free at your will, we will be mired in the swamp, too, exactly like the expedition army of the Imperium! The Immortal Cultivators of the Imperium cannot carry out their combat ability. But neither can we! What’s the point?”

Li Yao opened his hands and smiled. “Not all our combat ability is restrained. This is our land. Our army will definitely outnumber theirs. Our Cultivators, after a round of battle, can retreat from the ‘absolute vacuum’ unhurriedly and go to train themselves or refill their spiritual energy in the rear. New Cultivators will fill their vacancies and continue the battle! The expedition army of the Imperium will come here after such a long journey. They must be bringing elite troops that are not large in number. Also, they will not have any logistics bases. Where can they rest and resupply?

“In a war of attrition under such harsh circumstances, how can they defeat us?

“More importantly, as I said, we will drag our opponent to our level and then defeat them with our abundant experience!

“We have abundant experience in fighting a large-scale war in a world without spiritual energy. We know what kind of weapons, tactics, and strategies we should adopt in such an environment, but there is no way that the Imperium has the knowledge! This is our greatest advantage!”

Professor Mo Xuan frowned. “Li Yao, I’m getting more and more confused. What do you mean by ‘abundant experience in fighting a large-scale war in a world without spiritual energy’? We don’t have such experience! A world without spiritual energy? Unimaginable! Is it possible to fight a war in such a world? How? Tossing sticks and stones at each other? That’s a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Professor, I’m afraid you are wrong.” Li Yao smiled. “I assure you that advanced weapons that dealing fatal damage to Core Formation Stage Cultivators and even Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators can still be developed in a world devoid of spiritual energy and without any knowledge of crystals!

“Right now, we don’t have such experience, but we have a whole century ahead of us. We can run simulations and slowly accumulate experience!

“Over the past few months, when I was free, I established such a virtual world in my brain that was devoid of spiritual energy or Cultivators. I deduced the evolution of the world from the primitive age and calculated the weapons and the combat modes that were most likely to be invented in such a world. Eventually, I found that I’d created a terrifying planet where an ordinary person could boast destructive strength!”